


An Ode to Everything

by pariahdog



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Friendship, Humor, Major spoilers for Railroad questline, Post-Game, Slice of Life, Slow Burn, because Deacon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-25
Updated: 2016-03-20
Packaged: 2018-05-16 02:12:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 17,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5809708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pariahdog/pseuds/pariahdog
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At the bottom of Mass Fusion, watching smoke clouds float through the air above them, Deacon turns to her. "So, now that we've 'viva-ed the revolution', what's next, partner?"</p>
<p>Fixer grins at him—and for a moment he forgets how she hesitated on pushing the detonator. He forgets the look in her eyes as she watched the last living memory of her old life go up in a massive explosion. She grins, and she says, "Everything, I guess."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. An Ode to Fake Roses

**Author's Note:**

> Oh boy, this is the first fanfic I'm posting in what feels like centuries. So this is gonna be a slice of life type fic—all in consecutive order, but just little snapshots of the relationship between Deacon and the SS. This is going to take a painfully long time to edge its way into romance (we all know how Deacon is) but it'll come at some point. I'm not sure of the tone of all of the chapters, but I'll update tags as I go. I hope you enjoy!

He brings her fake roses.

It's supposed to be a joke. It's a really old one, goes way back to a month after they first met. On the top of Hub 360, where a secured DIA cache lies in wait for runners and one of Tinker Tom's MILA’s is perched at a vantage point, they sat legs crossed and looking down on the city, enjoying the relative peace after a long morning of work.

Fixer looked at him then and told him the view was much better back in the days before the war. And Deacon, being who he was, agreed, said the pool had been a lot cleaner too, that whoever was taking care of it now was getting a dock in their pay. Saying things like that, telling fanciful lies about himself, it made her laugh he realized early on. She found it funny; a reaction that was vastly different from Carrington’s scorn or Desdemona’s exasperation, or everyone else's surprise or disbelief. She found it funny, so he kept at it. It was nice to feel like his greatest talent was appreciated in more ways than one.

He told her then that if they kept up at the rate they were working at, the Institute would be all but taken care of in a matter of months. They worked quickly together, and yeah, maybe they didn't have the best combat synergy, but they always saw eye to eye on the _really_ important stuff. Like moral values. And reading material. Fixer laughed, shook her head. “If we manage to take them down, the first three rounds are on me.”

Deacon had smiled at her, shrugged his shoulders. “It’s a date then.” And they went silent, stared at each other in the midday sun, and burst into laughter, because joking around was probably one of the only things keeping them both going.

Today, Deacon brings her fake roses because they’d made it a date. He’s committed to the shtick and he’s in a good mood, and Fixer was most definitely _not_ the last he’d seen her, which is as good a reason as any to be himself. He’s seen her when she’s been down before, and it’s never been a pretty sight. So he figures he’ll scope things out, see how she’s doing, and if necessary, try to help pull her out of the depression she’s spiraling into with some of his award-winning antics. That usually does the trick.

He knocks on the metal garage door of the Red Rocket workshop, where he can hear her quietly swearing and rummaging through drawers. There’s a pause in her sounds—nobody ever knocks, friends just let themselves in through the sides and enemies just start attacking—but he hears the scuffling of her boots on the concrete floors, and the sound of her fist slamming against a button, and the gates slowly rise up to reveal Fixer, dressed up in her vault suit, which is something he hasn’t seen in months, and giving him a confused look. “Uh, Deacon?” She eyes the flowers in his hand, gives him a once over.

But he takes it all in stride. This _is_ pretty unusual after all, and she hasn’t seen him for a week. HQ had needed him for some quick recon, and Fixer had hightailed it to Sanctuary after promising to come back when she had time; she has a son to take care of now and, synth or not, children demand attention.

He walks in and extends the roses towards her. “Surprise! You owe me three drinks! Bet you thought I would forget, huh?” He lets her take them from him, notes the lack of grease on her hands and has to wonder what she’s doing here if she’s not fixing anything. The workshop is relatively clean aside from a few opened drawers and an upturned box of scrap metal, and Deacon knows she’s a messy worker.

Fixer smiles at the roses, examines them from a couple of angles and says, “Where the hell did you get these from?” She touches the petals, seems to take some small measure of delight in their velvety texture.

He’d found them in the ruins of some pre-war restaurant he’d hunkered down in one night, remembered the joke, took them along with him. He’s not going to tell her that. “Are they _that_ good? I got a few pieces of fabric and some wire, made them myself. It’s good to know that I’ve still got a knack for arts and crafts though. I should start up a business.” And though he knows she doesn’t believe him, Fixer laughs anyway, finding his lie entertaining, trusting him to tell her the truth when necessary and to keep her entertained when it’s not.

It’s a hell of a lot of trust he doesn’t deserve, but he’ll take it all the same.

“Alright then. Thanks, these are nice.” She looks behind herself, scans the room and backs up to grab a chipped ceramic vase near her workbench. For the first time in just about ever, Deacon sees something in this room that’s not a tool being used for its original purpose. As she sets the vase on her tool chest, she speaks. “You’re right. I didn’t expect you to remember; _I_ didn’t even remember. But I guess I ought to know by now that you don’t just forget things. Do you mind if we stick to Sanctuary then? I don’t want to head out too far without asking anyone to watch Shaun long term for me.”

Deacon shrugs at her back, watches her arrange the eight flowers just so. She’s very meticulous when she decorates; old world habits die hard. “No problem, boss. Whatever’s good with you.” When she turns around she’s got her eyes lowered to the floor. Those downcast eyes are a sign, he knows, for when she wants to say something but isn’t sure she should, though he’s never been on the receiving end of this look. Fixer always speaks candidly with him, and so now he has cause for concern beyond a friend in a bad way. “Hey. You alright?”

She looks up at him, laughs quietly, scratches the back of her neck. “Yeah, I’m good. Sorry, I just… I wasn’t expecting this. I sort of had the impression that I’d be alone today, you know? I have MacCready keeping an eye on Shaun, so I figured I’d sit around here, just do nothing for the day.”

Ah. That he can understand. He nods, offers her a small smile. “Another time, then?”

But Fixer’s hands fly up, and she’s shaking her head. “Oh, no, no, I didn’t mean I wanted you to go. No, you should probably stay.” She looks around at the three walls that are shielding her from the outside, regards them warily. “It would be better for me if you did. But would you mind if we hung out here? I don’t really feel like having to see anyone else until I go home.”

Deacon isn’t sure what she’s getting at with all her cryptic talk— _sure_ , Deacon thinks to himself, _she’s pretty miserable, but that can be fixed_ —but her request is reasonable, and he _did_ come out all this way to see her. “Yeah, sure thing boss. But you still owe me three drinks. And you promised me a book about a month ago, which I _still_ don’t have.”

This gets a smile out of her. “Alright, alright, you can have your damn book. And your drinks, so what do you want?” She moves to hit the button on the wall, and the gates come down again, sealing them away from the outside world. “C’mon, let’s go hit up the fridge.”

She’s still not the same old Fixer he’d taught to lie and sneak and sleuth—the one that _ignores_ all of that valuable imparted knowledge most of the time—the one who lives up to her name in spades with how she erases problems off the face of the Earth, but Deacon figures she’ll be back to normal in no time.

As she enthuses about pre-war cocktails and hands him a faded copy of a book called _The Theban Plays_ , he decides that this is a good start.


	2. An Ode to Sleep

They don’t share nightmares.

On those few occasions when he wakes up in the middle of the night sweating and afraid, Deacon does it quietly, like he does everything else. No shouting, no movement, nothing. But he knows that Fixer knows because he always goes stock-still when he wakes up, and she’s an impossibly light sleeper (it comes with having a child is his guess) so he can hear her breathing change, and feel her muscles tensing because they always sleep back to back. It makes them both more comfortable that way—if one of them reacts to a problem, the other will be sure to follow suit just as quickly, and nights in the Commonwealth can get pretty damn cold sometimes.

But when it’s not him, and it rarely ever is, and Fixer is having her awful night terrors, she shoots up like a dart, curls cross-legged into herself and breathes heavily. And he knows that she knows that he knows, because it’s just too loud to miss.

In the early days of travelling together, back when all they had exchanged were code names and jokes, they kept quiet and didn’t move, left the other to their silent misery, tried not to make a big deal of it, but also to reassure the other that it was an understood problem. People have pasts. Demons catch up. When you’re asleep you’re vulnerable in more ways than one.

Over time, this evolved. One night where he asked her if she was alright, because _damn_ she was crying, and she couldn’t quite get it under control. Another where they sat up together and stared quietly at their own hands, shoulder to shoulder and socked feet touching. One time when it was too much for him to go back to sleep Fixer tore off her pip-boy, let him play a few games of Zeta Invaders, watched him try and fail to beat her high score, taunting him every time the list came up and her three letter name was still at the top, L-E-E, _you’re never gonna catch up, chump, I’ve been playing this since high school_.

But most nights are like this night.

Fixer is this evening’s unlucky victim, and he can hear her ragged breaths from behind him. They sit back to back, facing their own directions, the perfect management for this sort of situation. It offers support but it keeps privacy in tact, in a manner of speaking. She cries a lot when she wakes up and she hates it, he knows. It’s why he’d started doing this in the first place, so she wouldn’t feel like she was being watched as she wiped at her face and tried to get a grip on herself. Tonight, Deacon knows he got lucky. He usually does. Next time they bed down for the night, he isn’t sure. It’s like Russian Roulette, but instead of dying, they get to wish they’d die, over and over again, and then wake up just in time to feel guilty about having those kinds of thoughts.

When she seems like she’s calmed down, he speaks. “You okay?” It’s all he needs to ask. They always say yes, because they have no other choice. They have their pride, yes, but more importantly they have their secrets. It’s better not to ask because neither will truly understand where the other is coming from, and neither wants to go through the pain of explaining. They’d already aired all the dirty laundry they could at this point—there was simply nothing left to say.

Fixer breathes deeply behind him. “Yeah. I’m alright, thanks.” But he doesn’t move because he knows it takes a little bit longer than that for her to go back to normal. They sit back to back on this filthy, disgusting mattress, they breathe behind each other, and Deacon fiddles with a patch in his jeans as he waits patiently for her to be okay.

He’s old hat at this, so usually he’s back to bed in a couple of minutes. Fixer, she’s new. She’s only had a year to adjust to this life, and nothing seems to fully go her way when it comes down to it. She takes more time. He thinks it's why she cries, but he’s not gonna ask.

“Okay. I’m good.” She’s so quiet he almost doesn’t hear her, and instinctively they’re both shifting to lie back down. “Thanks.” She says, as if he needs to be thanked, as if he doesn’t understand, but it’s a nice gesture all the same. Her breathing is even now, and he can feel the curve of her spine pressing against him through their shirts. She’d weighed a hell of a lot more when they’d first met. Misery has stripped her down to basic parts.

Deacon wonders who’s next. Is it him? Or is it Fixer again? He sighs quietly, tries not to think about it. “Hey, don’t mention it.” _Really. Don’t_. Because he’s never going to forget about things like this, but that doesn’t mean he can’t try his hardest.

He isn’t sure when she falls asleep, but it’s long before he does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is pretty short, but it seemed like a necessary chapter to me. It's all very slice of life, yes, but I've still got to tell a story in here somewhere, haha. But at least the next one should be happier!
> 
> Anyway, next one should be out soon. Thanks for reading!


	3. An Ode to Creative Storytelling

Deacon has participated in a lot of weird events in his time. He has decades of oddities under his belt and he isn’t shy about letting it be known, excited even to relate these stories to people—with a heavy serving of exaggeration and embellishment, yes, but that’s what makes it _fun_ —and they’re something he finds he can take pride in. They keeps the Commonwealth interesting, and keep his days memorable.

But the absolute unpredictability of this ridiculous _bullshit_ Fixer pulls today? This? This is insane. This is the story he won’t even bother adding details to when he recounts it to the entirety of HQ when they get back. This is the story that is so left-field that it requires no finishing touches.

It begins with a fire escape. 

“I’m thinking we go in through the top, get the drop on him from a better vantage point. And before you argue, think back to the last time we had to deal with a Courser, Fixer. It didn’t exactly go well.” Though his sunglasses are in the way of his eyes he’s sure she can tell that he’s giving her a very stern look. Or as stern as he can get. He’s not such a serious guy when he’s not actively in character for something.

He and Fixer make a great team and everyone back at HQ knows it. They get their work done in a timely manner, efficiently and effortlessly. The only problem they ever face in this partnership is the fact that their fighting styles don’t exactly mesh. When a situation doesn’t absolutely call for stealth, and when she knows that it’s beyond saving with words, she’s quick to go into a fight guns blazing. It’s pretty unexpected, considering that not even a year ago by her own estimations she was living in pre-war Boston making roast turkeys and listening to radio soap operas. She’s adjusted pretty well all things considered, but he can’t really grasp how this woman with no previous combat training can be so quick to throw herself into the line of fire. Especially when she can be so damn good at sneaking around—he knows that for a fact, since he’s the one who taught her.

She’s either suicidal or stupid, and Deacon knows she’s not an idiot but the alternative isn’t really a pleasant thought either.

Fixer sighs, grumbles something under her breath. “Alright, _fine_. You have a point. Laser burns hurt like a son of a bitch anyway.”

Deacon laughs as he jumps to pull down the ladder above them. “And here I thought you liked the smell of your own cauterized wounds. I’ve gotta be honest, it was even starting to grow on _me_.” He moves aside to let her go up first, and she grabs one of the rungs to haul herself up, glances back at him to scowl.

“Oh, piss off. I’ll walk right in through the front door just to spite you.” She really would, Deacon knows this for a fact, and it’s why he made her go up before him. He follows after her and they ascend to the top of the building, rifles at the ready, sneaking over to the roof access hatch of the old factory. “You’d think with the Institute gone these guys would just give up.” Fixer mutters to herself. She hadn’t been big on the assignment to begin with but PAM had said the job was necessary, that the loose Courser was a threat, could potentially ruin Railroad operations in the area. And being the only heavy left at HQ meant Fixer was the only one suited for the job.

“It’s not like they can just fade into society. Coursers are brainwashed to the highest degree, they take the Institute so seriously that it doesn’t matter if it exists or not. Their minds are fine-tuned for hunting, and they can’t just give that up.” Deacon whispers back at her as they work on prying the rusted hatch open to get inside.

Though he isn’t looking at her face, he can tell she’s frowning. “X6 is doing just fine, and he’s a Courser,” is her grumbled reply.

Ah. This again. The argument that never gets old. The one where every time a Courser is so much as brought up, Fixer tries to relate all of them to the _single anomaly_ of the whole that she’d somehow managed to corral into her corner. And she isn’t wrong, no, X6 had adapted impossibly well to the shift in his lifestyle. But Deacon, knowing what he does about Fixer, about her special relationship with the man in charge of their previous common enemy, doesn’t have a doubt in his mind that there was a little more than just adaptation going on. If Shaun, the kid Shaun, could be wired up to wholeheartedly believe he’s her son, then there’s no reason X6 can’t be in a similar position.

Or, having heard the holotape the real Shaun left her—and he will never admit that he _still_ spies on her from time to time, because it’s a huge betrayal of trust but _old habits die hard, damn it_ —it’s entirely possible the old man told the Courser to keep kosher with her regardless of what she did. He isn’t sure, but after seeing the setup in the SRB during the attack and getting a grasp on how seriously they take that kind of thing he thinks option two is the less suspicious course of action.

He chooses to keep quiet at her comment, instead holds the hatch open for her as she climbs inside and slips down the ladder silently.

Inside of the factory (an old plant that produced circuitry and wiring for smaller companies) Fixer is pocketing useful items as they slink along the catwalk above the Courser. Deacon resists the urge to roll his eyes at her, instead takes what he can find as well—Tinker mentioned something about needing more supplies, and he figures he might as well help while he’s out.

They have a clear view of the Courser when they get to the edge of the stairs. He’s looking for something here—exactly what is unknown, and it’s a bit of a freaky thought to imagine these guys are still running around the Commonwealth despite having no orders to act on. They’re all loose cannons now, like the gen 1’s and 2’s they come across from time to time. It's a pretty big problem, so taking them out is the better option. Deacon thinks it would be good to have a memory swiped Courser on their side, yes, but the risks outweigh the benefits. Besides, they've already got X6.

There’s a low hum of machinery in the room, enough to mask their voices so they can talk, but it’s not worth the risk. Deacon pulls his rifle off of his back, peers through the scope—he briefly considers thanking MacCready for fixing it up for him, even if the kid spent ten minutes lecturing him on proper gun maintenance—gets a good view of the few other synths milling about below. It’s safer to take out the little fish and leave the big catch for last in this case. It’s easy to dodge one person shooting at you. Six or seven, not so much.

When he looks over to Fixer she signs to him that she’ll try to take as many out quietly as possible and aims down the sights she’d affixed to Deliverer, waits for one to walk far enough away to not be noticed immediately.

Deacon keeps his rifle trained on a synth interacting with the Courser, where they stand on the main floor of the factory almost underneath the catwalk. He hears the muffled sound of Fixer firing once, twice, three times. There’s one left, clearly visible to the conversing pair below them and he signals for her to shoot on three. She nods, and they silently count down.

Both bodies drop at the same time, leaving the Courser alone, and he looks up, traces the sound from his rifle back to where they’re kneeling on the catwalk.

It takes all of two seconds for this mission to get ridiculous.

The Courser pulls out a Stealth Boy. This is familiar, very much like a previous encounter with one of the synths. One Stealth Boy and the fight had gone from a straight up shoot out to a mess of hit-and-run tactics, and an awful lot of laser burns for himself and Fixer. Deacon doesn’t want to deal with that again, especially with how crowded the factory is.

Fixer isn’t happy with the idea either. She curses loudly, stands to her feet. And it's in this moment that the story gets it’s unbelievable flourish. There’s no bullshitting this. Deacon is about to say something to her but his eyes go wide behind his glasses (nobody needs to know that, he’ll omit it in retellings) as he sees her vault herself over the railing of the catwalk. “Fix—” He’s too late to call out to her as she drops from the side, down, down…

And _straight onto the Courser_ , who’s just gone nigh invisible.

Deacon watches in abject horror ( _Jesus Christ Fixer why do you do these things why why why_ ) as momentum pulls both bodies onto the floor, and the two scuffle for control. The Courser manages to stand up again but Fixer is latched onto what Deacon can only assume is his back, her arms and legs pinning them together uncomfortably. “A little help here!” She calls up to him as she shoots at… at something. Probably his torso.

He loathes to admit that with her keeping a hold on the guy it’s a lot easier to figure out where he needs to shoot.

Deacon grunts as he levels the rifle with the spot just underneath her hand, lining it up with where he can see an outline over her right shoulder. “I’m getting too old for this,” he grumbles as he takes the shot.

It’s landed in the right spot because Fixer isn’t screaming, and a spray of blood lands on the floor in front of where the Courser must be. He watches her struggle to push a clip into Deliverer, sees her chokehold on their invisible target slipping, and Deacon swears under his breath. No point in staying up here then; he runs down the catwalk steps as fast as he can, slings his rifle to his back and unclips his 10mm, runs over to where Fixer and the Courser are fighting.

The Courser lets himself fall on her, and her back hits the concrete floor in a way that looks painful. Through shimmering air he can see her wince, but her vice grip does its best not to falter, legs still wrapped tightly around his waist and arms still secured in their feeble chokehold. She manages to get off her entire clip into the body on top of her, but there’s no way for her to reload her gun now. Fixer refuses to let him roll her over, but her hands are still slipping. Her fingers grab at an invisible something that must be the Courser’s shortly cropped hair and she yanks at it. “Face! Right here!”

Deacon aims and shoots five times at the spot directly in front of her face, not hesitating at all. Her head hits the floor just in case, good thinking on her part—these are hollow-point bullets, not miracles, and he doesn’t even want to think about explaining to HQ that he shot their only heavy in the face—and he keeps firing until the clip is empty, reloads, shoots again until he sees the struggle stop and Fixer grunt at the sudden force of dead weight upon her.

The factory is quiet, save for the hum of machinery and the breathless pants of Fixer as she shoves the flickering body of the Courser off of her. When it hits the ground the Stealth Boy finally runs out, and Fixer is panting, sprawled out on the concrete. She looks up at him, gives a quiet laugh and says, “You think we can turn this into some kind of sport?”

Deacon groans and runs a hand over the stubble on his head. “I have officially seen it all. You’re going to get us killed one day. We’re going to die.”

She snickers, but she winces soon after. “I think he bruised a rib. Also my ankle might be sprained from the fall. Can I have a stimpak?”

What Deacon _wants_ to say is no, because maybe if he just lets her suffer through her injuries she won’t make this mistake again. But because they managed to kill the Courser incredibly quickly—new record, actually, if the adrenaline hasn’t skewed his perception of time. He’ll have to let the folks over at Randolph know they’ve been beat—he sits down next to her to make sure she’s alright. “I appreciate the work ethic, Fix, I really do. And far be it from me to tell you heavies how to get the job done, but could you maybe refrain from ruining the creative process that goes behind my storytelling and _not_ do ridiculous shit? I like to edit all of that in in post. Thanks.”

As he fishes a stimpak from his bag and hands it to her, she smirks at him, pulls herself up to a seated position. “Sorry. I’ll tone it down next time.” And when he gives her an expressionless look, she she shrugs. “Seriously, I’ll try not to get us killed. Scouts honor.”

“Something gives me the impression that you were never a scout.”

She rolls her eyes, pushes the modified weave of her overcoat out of the way to to jam the stimpak into her chest. When she finishes she sets it down next to her. “Okay fine then. Pinky promise.” She holds out her little finger to him, and he stares at it.

“What am I supposed to do with that?” He asks flatly. Fixer squints at him in confusion, and then looks somewhat alarmed. He isn’t sure what he’s said wrong.

“Are you telling me that of all of the dumb bullshit that’s survived the apocalypse,” her voice is deathly serious now, and she gives him a blank stare, “and of all of the dumb bullshit that _you_ know about for whatever weird reason, a pinky promise isn’t one of them?”

Deacon shrugs as he gets another stimpak for her, waits for her to roll up the leg of her fatigues. “Can’t say that I do, boss.”

Instead of letting him actually help her, you know, so she can walk and they can get this show on the road before more problems turn up, she holds her finger out closer to him. “A pinky promise is the kind that you never break. And if you do, you forfeit all of your credibility. You _only_ do it if you’re serious. So, pinky promise.” When he doesn’t move, she groans. “You take _your_ pinky… and you wrap it around _mine_ , Deacon. This is not nuclear physics.”

Deacon looks at her outstretched finger, looks back at her. Somewhat hesitantly, he takes it in his own, does as she says. Fixer smiles. “See? Easy.”

“This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever done in my life.” Deacon says, laughing a little. It’s silly—nothing about this could actually force someone to keep a promise, and they both know it. He figures it’s more the intent of the action than it is the action itself.

Fixer rolls her eyes. “Yeah, yeah. So, I promise I’ll be more careful next time. Just, uh… Maybe in post you can edit in me being way more careful about that than I actually was so that when Dez and Carrington find out I don’t get get chewed out?”

Deacon grins. “Not a chance, pal. Not a chance.”

(Four days later, the story has passed through three different safehouses, Fixer has received a thorough scolding, and every time someone talks about taking out a Courser, they refer to them as “Fixed”—Deacon thinks this particular story turned out pretty good, all things considered.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a person who regularly walks up to Coursers and just spams them in the face with 10mm's, I highly recommend the activity. It really puts a perspective on what it means to not immediately die.
> 
> For a while I was gonna go with the idea of Fixer just suplexing him or something, but she's far too small for that. Fortunately, she's just about the right size to jump of a catwalk and try (in vain) to put a Courser in a sleeper hold. I like to imagine that she was a big fan of those mechanical bulls back in the day. 
> 
> Thanks for reading! Next chapter will be out soon!


	4. An Ode to Control

As Deacon watches her scrub and sweep and redecorate her house, he has to admit that it's kind of cute.

He loathes using that word to describe a woman who’d once narrated him the last two pages of _Animal Farm_ from memory, because he’s _cool_ and the people he chooses to roll with are _cool_ too, damn it, but there's no other way to describe it. She's been taken over by the ghosts of housewives past, and the unholy fervor she's worked herself into knows no bounds. This house _must_ be clean. And though he suspects she’s meant to distract him with the mug of instant coffee she’d put in front of him—it’s stale, yes, but it’s still coffee—he’s far more inclined to watch her work through the dust and grime that’s accumulated on the surfaces of her old home.

It’s _cute_. It’s really not a thought he wants to have, but he figures he’s earned himself a free pass after the ride they’d been on for the past few months.

They share the space with Shaun, who she’s clearly happy to be around for the day. Despite his usual motto of _three’s a crowd_ and the rearrangement of appropriate subject matter for a ten year old to be listening in on, Deacon has to admit that it’s a pretty pleasant environment. The kid is tinkering with something vaguely weapon shaped on the coffee table ( _no guns on my kitchen counter, please_ ) and isn’t paying either of them much attention.

“All I’m saying is you have a robot butler; one that particularly enjoys cleaning. Shouldn’t you be letting him do this?” Deacon asks her as she rifles through a box of trinkets next to the fridge.

Fixer takes a moment to frown at him. “Codsworth has been cleaning this house for over two hundred years. I think he needs a break. Besides, he’s got other messes to worry about around Sanctuary without me leaving one more for him.” She’s very focused on her task of arranging knickknacks around the room, but she still has time to talk—an old poster here and a set of curtains cut from some old blankets there and the space is really starting to look like an old-world home. She’s got that touch. Deacon is in pre-war heaven right about now, and he has half a mind to start asking her about life before the bombs.

“I guess he wouldn’t be so worried about the decorating half.” He says, sips his coffee. He hears her sigh.

She sets an old teapot in one of her rusty cabinets, probably more for decoration than for utility. “This is _my_ house. I was cleaning it long before Codsworth got here, and as good as he is it’s my job to make this place feel like a home,” she spares a quick look towards Shaun, who’s sitting quietly trying to work something out. He twists a fuse around in his little fingers, and Deacon watches her frown disappear in a matter of seconds. He understands the sentiment; she’s looking out for her son.

He shrugs. “I guess. Everything looks fine to me.”

Instead of responding, she huffs, looks around at her handiwork. The house _does_ look good. It’s the most effort he’d ever seen put into a living space. Fixer sighs. “I suppose you’re right.”

Deacon takes a sip of his coffee. He’s trying very hard to ignore how bitter it is. “Well, actually, if you’re open to suggestions, I was thinking you could throw a quilt or two over the couches, patch the holes in the rug.” Her eyes go wide, and he laughs. “Relax. I’m kidding. This is the best house in the Commonwealth.”

She sets him with a glare and takes his mug from his hands, sits down next to him. “This is mine now.”

“Oh no, how will I continue on with my life? Everything is ruined.” he replies, voice flat despite the grin on his face.

Fixer takes a look over at Shaun and when she see’s the kid isn’t paying attention she flips him off. Before another word can be gotten in she spins around and smiles. “What are you working on, sweetheart?”

Shaun, who has been gracefully ignoring the both of them up until this point, looks up, a screwdriver poised carefully over a small panel of... hell if he knows what that is. “Oh. I’m just trying to figure out a better way to line up the beam of this laser rifle. I don’t think I did it right when I first made it.”

Fixer is a good mother. She stands up and goes over to sit with her son on the couch, makes herself 100 percent vested in what he’s doing, even forgets the coffee she’s stolen, and says, “Show me,” and smiles at him as he begins his explanation.

Deacon watches quietly.

It’s all so domestic; very much detached from the scene that waits for them outside of these walls. Just a woman and her child, smiling and talking like they would have been two hundred years ago had things not gone down like they did. Fixer isn’t even dressed up for the day; she’s wearing a t-shirt and faded pair of jeans, and her thick, blond hair is half pulled up into it’s usual messy buns on the top of her head, one of them close slipping out of its bindings, and she’s done absolutely nothing to cover up the birthmark on her neck that she usually goes out of the way to hide. It’s domestic.

It’s cute. It’s _nice_.

Deacon takes a sip of his coffee, listens to Shaun explain various grades of capacitors to his mother as if it’s the easiest concept in the world to grasp. He’s an outsider in this, yeah, but seeing this sort of thing makes him happy in a way. Fixer deserves this after all she’s done.

“Lee,” The moment is broken as MacCready pokes his head in through the open side door, and all three of them look over.

Fixer frowns. “What’s up, Mac?”

MacCready jabs a thumb behind him, looks a little concerned. “Got a problem at the gate. You should, uh, you should probably come out here,” he swallows, scrunches up nose, “before X6 does something about it.”

That has her up in an instant. Fixer knows the Courser better than all of them, but everybody in Sanctuary knows that X6 is not one for diplomatic solutions. Sure, he’ll make an attempt at it for Fixer's sake, but it’s not his strong suit. He does better at holding down the local guard. “I’m going. I’ll be right back, Shaun.” She slips through the front door and Deacon can hear her jogging down the street in her ratty sneakers until it’s drowned out by the sound of distant generators.

He looks over to MacCready, who’s still standing at the side door. The kid glances over to Shaun before turning back to scowl at him. “Are you going or what?”

“Guess so,” Deacon grins, and moves to leave the same way Fixer did. As an afterthought he takes his coffee with him and he slinks out of the door, heads down the road to the large gate in front of the bridge. By the time he reaches a respectable distance to observe, Fixer is starting up a conversation with a trio of young looking Minutemen with raised weapons.

“Hey. I heard we had something of an issue out here?” She’s standing next to X6; the Courser’s back is ramrod straight, and his fingers are curled around his laser rifle tightly. He looks mildly irritated—to be fair it’s actually his default expression—but Deacon’s known the guy long enough to see that he’s having a tough time not just acting on the instinct that the Institute taught him. He sips his coffee, watches as one of the Minutemen, a tall woman with a scar running through her scowling lips, turns to face Fixer.

“A fair bit more than an issue I think,” the woman spits angrily, jutting her rifle at X6, who doesn’t flinch despite her efforts. “What’s this thing doing here? Wasn’t around last time we passed through.”

Deacon inches closer to the action, because he’s really gotta see how this plays out. He’s sort of been waiting for something like this to happen. He’s curious, and Fixer hardly needs backup with a living, breathing war machine right next to her.

She’s wearing a well-practiced a mask of calm—she’s very patient when she needs to be. He remembers what she’d told him of her old job ( _a speech writer for politicians in the area, great pay, work that could be done from home_ ) and he sees her riling up like she does when she’s about to make a power play. She loves herself a good fight, yes, but Fixer can be diplomatic as hell. She hasn’t gotten as many settlements as she has set up by just shooting things, after all.

“Oh, are you talking about X6? Well, he’s here because he runs the local guard. I hand picked him myself—I can’t think of anyone else I’d rather have watching our backs.”

But the woman doesn’t like that answer, and neither does the rest of her squad. “You picked a synth to watch over the town? To be in _charge_ of your safety? Lady, I don’t know who elected you mayor of this place but if this the kind of protection you’re offering I’d hate to live here.”

Fixer barks out a laugh, and the bun on the left side of her head slips loose from its binding, falls flat into a ponytail. Deacon sees her hand twitch. “The _mayor of Sanctuary_? I’m the motherfucking _General of the Minutemen_. Show some goddamn respect, punk.” She’s pretty peeved and everyone in a three mile radius can tell. The guards standing post at the gate shift uncomfortably, and X6 looks much more pleased than he had a few minutes ago. “I’ll give you a pass since we’ve never met; not everybody knows what I look like and that’s fair. I’m a bit too busy to make a guest appearance whenever somebody signs on nowadays.”

“ _You’re_ the general?” One of the men asks. He looks skeptical. Deacon has to admire the suspicion. Fixer has a very distinct face, but she doesn’t exactly look like she’d be much in a fight; and everybody knows about all the fighting the General is said to get herself into.

But Fixer shrugs, waves an arm behind her. “Ask anyone around here and they’ll tell you. But that’s not what’s important right now. You got a problem with the way I’m running this place?”

The woman narrows her eyes. “I’m not trying to rustle up the ranks or anything. But you can’t expect people to be fine and dandy with one of these… things running around. We’ve seen them more and more since after the Institute got taken down. And we know what _that_ thing is. It’s a _Courser_. We should be putting it down before it kills all of us.”

Surprisingly, X6 speaks up. “You can try.” It’s a challenge that the woman seems ready to take.

Fixer throws the Courser an irritated look before turning to the Minutemen. “Yeah, whatever,”

The woman scoffs. “Whatever? What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means _whatever_ ,” she shrugs, “if you don’t like it, leave. I don’t have time to wave my dick at you all day, and I’ve got plenty of young, eager and good recruits signing up now. You’ve got a problem with synths in any capacity, maybe you can find some wayward Brotherhood stragglers that could use your help. I’m sure they’re looking for recruits to rebuild their numbers.” Fixer smirks, puts her hands on her hips and stares the squad down. “I don’t want bigots in my ranks. So get over yourselves now, or find someone else’s army to burden. This is the dumb kind of shit that got the bombs dropped two hundred years ago.”

When nobody speaks, she says, “Put up or shut up, my friends. Either get out of here or keep it moving.”

The woman lowers her gun, and the two men follow suit. “We’re keeping an eye on it.”

Fixer nods. “Behave yourselves while you’re in town and you won’t need to. Have a good day now.” She allows them to walk past her, and Deacon watches as they walk along the road. One of the men looks at him, and smirking, he raises his mug at the guy, who lifts an eyebrow but says nothing as he walks past.

With the action over, Deacon feels it’s alright to get closer to X6 and Fixer where they stand in the road. X6 is watching the three Minutemen head further into town. “We should have just killed them,” he says plainly, staring down Fixer behind his sunglasses.

She snorts, reaches up to fix her bun. “Give it a rest, X6. They’re just kids, they don’t know what the hell they’re talking about.”

“If you don’t assert some sort of authority they’re going to cause a problem for you in the long run, ma’am.”

Fixer rolls her eyes at him. “Yeah, I didn’t see you getting all gung ho for making examples when I had to deal with the mutineers.”

X6 scoffs. “Those were scientists, not armed children. They actually had something to contribute.”

“And those kids can do something good too if they get their prejudices out of the way. Thanks for sticking it out until I got here, though. I don’t want anyone getting the wrong impression about synths—the wrong impression about _you_.”

X6 doesn’t respond, simply looks at her. She sighs, reaches out a hand to clap him on the shoulder. “Alright buddy, get back to work. Keep an eye on them though when you can. Let me know if anything weird happens.” Deacon takes another sip of his coffee as Fixer turns to him. He waits for her to catch up to where he’s standing in the road. He doesn’t say anything to her, just finishes off his coffee, and she groans, folding her arms. “Okay, let’s hear it.”

“You’re not gonna be able to keep _everyone_ in check just by saying a couple of words, Fix. You’ve got the weakest grip on your army and it’s gonna come back to bite you in the ass one of these days.” He’s been straight with her about his hangups on the Minutemen before and he’s not going to sugarcoat it for her now. He knows a bad idea when he sees one, even if it is wrapped up nicely in good intentions.

Fixer nods for them to start moving and they slowly make their way up the path. “I know. It’s why I’ve got to start setting up some structure soon, so things don’t get out of hand. I blew the Brotherhood out of the sky, I smoked the Institute out of their hole, and what the Commonwealth needs _now_ is an army to back them up when the little guys start getting roughed up. As much as I admire Dez, she isn’t going to do anything to help me with that. Nobody is. So I’ve got no other choice, Deacon.”

Fixer has been saying she has no other choice for a very long time now, despite his best efforts. And while her idea does have some merit to it—all of the settlements she’d pulled together are enjoying the benefits of being under Minuteman protection, and they’re thriving, which is pretty damn incredible—he can see this playing out very badly, and it’s mostly because so many of the Minutemen don't have any respect. For her, for the title, for whatever leftover ideals exist. Some can work just fine under the nigh invisible standard she’s set, that Garvey is helping to enforce from his role in the Castle, but kids like the ones who rolled into town don’t know any better; all they’ve got is years of being oppressed by the Institute and access to heavy artillery.

But he’s already told her this. For once he agrees with X6, though maybe not to such extremes. She needs to use whatever she’s got to inspire some kind of command chain in her ranks and if it means putting a couple of problem kids in lockup for a day then he doesn’t see the problem.

“I’m giving you an A for effort, I really am Fixer, but this is going to be a big issue down the line. We’re trying to _avoid_ things like this happening. You can’t count on X6 to keep his cool with everything—if they decided to attack him, they’d all be dead right now. Sorry to have to say this, but you’ve gotta nip this problem in the bud sometime soon or you’re gonna be facing the consequences.”

She looks like she’s about to snap at him but instead she groans, stops where she stands in the road to look at him. Deacon is patient; he lets her have a moment to think of something to say that doesn’t start with a stream of swearing. “This is difficult,” she says finally, “more difficult than I can really explain. But I _will_ fix it, Deacon, you know I will.” She kicks a stray pebble and it skips over to one of the doorsteps. “I’m gonna ask Mac to sign on with us. God knows he’s been helping us out enough already, but he’s better at this than I am. If I can get him and Preston to work together, to run the circuits and meet up with the recruits coming out of the Castle, I think they’d be able to build some structure in this militia.”

Deacon considers this. “It’s not a bad start.” If there’s anything MacCready’s got, it’s loyalty. He loves Fixer, he loves her son, and he’s got a pretty good head on his shoulders for a little merc with a big mouth. The kid shit talks the rest of the world, but one bad word about Fixer and he’s likely to go out of his way to come to her defense.

She nods. “I was hoping you’d say that. You know I trust you, yeah? You know what you’re talking about, so I take your advice to heart. Just believe me when I say I’m gonna fix this before it’s too big for me to handle.” Fixer reaches her hand out to him but to do what he isn't sure because she hesitates, lets it fall back beside her. “Please.”

He trusts her good intentions, but he’s remembering that pre-war woman he’d seen not even a half hour ago, the way she’d cleaned and hustled around her house and been entirely enraptured in her son. That’s who Fixer really is, who _Lee_ really is, he thinks, and no amount of Commonwealth grime and misery is going to erase the fact that she is, by nature, not inclined towards situations like this. He supposes it’s for the best that she’s got a small army of friends backing her up when her resolve gets weak.

Deacon nods. “Yeah. I believe you.” And just as quickly as he says it, he holds up his mug, grins. “More coffee?”

She laughs at him, punches him in the arm (it stings a little, but he’s not gonna tell her) and waves him along back to her house, but the smile doesn’t quite reach her eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long! I spent a really long time rewriting it (I kept getting frustrated with the scene switch in the beginning, had to add and take away and just utterly scrapped the whole thing at first) because it didn't quite feel right. I was trying to get some specific aspects of Lee's relationship with X6 and Shaun in here, as well as MacCready, since those are important too. It's sort of difficult to do when Deacon's shifty ass is doing all of the commentary.
> 
> I like writing this from Deacon's POV though since I feel like he can be a bit of an unreliable narrator at times. He's got a very good idea of how Fixer operates but he doesn't know EVERYTHING about her, and he's also got his biases, and that's something to think about. 
> 
> Anyway, thanks for reading! Any comments would be super appreciated to let me know how I'm doing. This is the first time in a while I've spent working on a fic like this, and it'd be nice to have some feedback.
> 
> Good day!


	5. An Ode to Vision

Deacon has had some trouble with reading for a few years now. He’s gotten used to it mostly; he holds books at just the right angle so that the words don’t blur as much, and railsigns are just symbols on walls. It’s nothing problematic. Just a minor inconvenience he’s learned to live with.

Since he and Fixer spend so much time together, she’s noticed it. She’s not an idiot; she sees when he has to back up from signs to get a good look at them, has commented on how long it takes him to read terminals and notes she wants to show him. And at first she’d assumed it was the sunglasses, which he’d had to firmly shoot down. 

But now she’s got a small box full of glasses in front of him, and she’s looking down at him expectantly. “Well?”

They’re holed up in Red Rocket for the day, Fixer having wanted to distract herself from all of the nothing she has to do today. Usually she would spend the time with Shaun, but the boy had gone off with MacCready for a small hunting trip. Deacon thinks that the merc might as well be the kid’s father, but he keeps it to himself. Though Fixer would probably be inclined to agree it wouldn’t make her happy, what with her actual late husband frozen in death in his cryogenic tomb barely a mile away.

“Well, what?” Is his smart reply to her nudging the box closer to where he sits at the window counter. She’s standing on the opposite side, wearing her vault suit again—why is she wearing it so much these days? Nostalgia? Is it just more comfortable?—and with her blond hair pulled up into messy buns on either side of her head. She looks a bit silly with the hairstyle but it’s become a habit for her on days when she doesn’t have to travel the Commonwealth.

“I have a box full of reading glasses and a copy of Moby Dick. You’re gonna figure out which ones work better for you and stop reading in sunglasses. It’s getting ridiculous.” Her fingers thrum on the cover of the paperback, and she moves the box a little closer to him with her free hand.

There’s literally nowhere for him to escape to that she can’t get to. And they actually have work to do tomorrow, so just leaving is out of the question. Deacon sighs loudly, wanting his irritation to be known. “You’re not gonna let me get out of this, are you?”

“No way, buddy. Here, try these first.” She hands him a pair of blue glasses, wire frames thin and somewhat scuffed from years of abandonment. He already knows they aren’t going to be flattering on him, but he takes them from her anyway, levels her with a deep frown. She smiles. “Go on. Don’t be shy.”

He wonders briefly if this is some sort of trick of hers to finally get him out of his sunglasses. She’s spent a year now telling him how dumb she thought it was for wearing them indoors anyway, so perhaps it is. But he trusts her, and it’s not like they’re having any sort of serious conversation where he’d want to be hiding his eyes. Deacon sighs and slowly removes his sunglasses, regretting the decision to go along with Fixer’s idea as her smile widens.

He puts the reading glasses on, and he looks at her. She’s staring at him, looking close to laughter. Deacon frowns. “Something funny?”

Fixer brings a fist up to her mouth and nods her head. “You have the—oh man, they're just the absolute stupidest looking tan lines I’ve ever seen. Holy shit, that’s  _ bad _ .”

Ah, right. The tan lines. He usually forgot about them, but it did serve as a secondary reason as to why he never took the sunglasses off. “I definitely look like an idiot now.”

Fixer shrugs. “You always look like an idiot, Deacon.” 

“Yeah, says the one with the weird hairstyle.” He smirks at the scowl that appears on her face.

“Your bald ass wouldn’t know what to do with this much hair. But that’s not the point. Here, try reading this.” She slides the book closer to him and he picks it up, opens it to a random page.

The words are a lot less blurry than they would be normally, but they still aren’t clear. When he looks up he realizes that she’s taken his sunglasses from where he’s placed them and put them on herself. They’re too big on her and she looks ridiculous because they're falling off but he doesn’t say that out loud. Instead, he sets the book down. “No dice. Are we  _ really _ gonna do this until we find a pair that’s good?” 

Fixer snatches the glasses off of his face and he flinches, somewhat surprised by the action. “Yeah. Here, these next.” This time it’s a bright pink pair, cat-eyed and in better condition than the last ones. 

Deacon puts them on. “These are actually pretty cool looking,” He smiles up at her, and she laughs, shakes her head, pushes the sunglasses up to her forehead when they keep threatening to slide off of her nose. When he flicks through the book, he says. “Still no, but better, I guess.” He takes the glasses off to hand back to Fixer, but she’s staring at him again. He frowns. “What is it _now_?”

She doesn’t answer immediately, just plays with the ends of the next set of glasses. She smiles to herself, bites back a laugh, and says, “You’re a redhead.” And it’s at that point that he realizes that she’s not looking at his eyes, but his  _ eyebrows _ . 

Deacon sighs and takes the glasses from her, tries them out. They’re much closer to what he needs, and he’d stop and say they were fine, but they’re too small on his face to be comfortable. “Warmer,” he says, puts them in the reject pile forming on the counter and rests his chin in his hand. “Are you gonna keep staring lovingly into my eyes all day, Fixer, ‘cause if so I’m gonna need you to take me out to dinner first.” His comment gets her to stop staring and she laughs, shaking her head, digging through the box again for the next pair.

“Sorry. It just sort of makes more sense now, why you decided to turn yourself into a walking cue ball,” Fixer peers at a small sticker on the glasses she’s chosen and hands them to him, “I guess I can’t blame you when you’ve got the most obvious hair color in the Commonwealth. Try those.”

These glasses are a perfect fit, and when he looks down to the book in his hands the words are actually quite clear. Sure, it’s not the best, but it’s considerably better, and they’re plain black with thick rims that he feels might be blocking out the worst of his tan lines. He’ll take his chances with them. “We’ve got a match,” he grins up at her, slides the book away, “are you satisfied now?”

“Yes. So wear them when you’re reading! I’ll be watching you, so don’t think you can get away with destroying your eyes anymore.” She’s smiling back down at him, and they look at each other. 

For a while, Deacon actually forgets that he’s seeing her now without the dark tint of sunglasses. Instead of all the muted colors he’s used to everything is bright. The freckles on her cheeks and nose stand out, and the birthmark on her neck is clearer despite the makeup she’s used to blot it out. Her vault suit is almost blinding.

It’s quiet, peaceful, and then Fixer laughs a little under her breath. “You’ve got really nice eyes, you know? Here.” She tugs his sunglasses from her head and hands them back to him.

He doesn’t respond to that, just puts them back where they belong.

* * *

After two weeks of Fixer yelling at him every time he tries to read without the damn glasses, he starts putting them on preemptively.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took me a while to churn out. But, in other news, I painted a picture of Deacon and Li, just cause I could. I dunno, it was Valentine's Day and I was bored and also I can't draw Nick. That's my excuse. 
> 
> You can check it out [here on my tumblr](http://nucleargoat.tumblr.com/post/139438611976/this-is-literally-the-laziest-painting-i-have-ever) if you like.


	6. An Ode to the History Books

Deacon knows a lot about her.

Fixer is his partner, and though she can be very tight lipped about her past when she’s so inclined there are little things that get through, let him piece together a picture of what she must have been like before she ended up two hundred years in the future and out of her element.

Her name is Lee. She’s definitely got a last name somewhere in there, but she’s already dropped it and there’s no way to figure it out now, not without asking, and he doesn’t plan on it. He knows that her long, blond hair is not natural—like clockwork, after two weeks on the road the jet black roots are showing, and she always manages to find a way to change the color. He isn’t sure how she’s doing it without needing to hit up Diamond City or Vault 81, but it might have something to do with the small box she takes with her each time before she comes back blond as ever. He knows she wears glasses sometimes, that she might actually need them, but not too much, because she takes the time to try on any pair she finds to see if they’re a match for her eyes, but she usually forgoes wearing them altogether. He knows that she doesn’t like the splotchy birthmark that crawls up to her chin from her neck because she covers it up when she can, wears scarfs like they’re going out of style, even in the heat of the summer, scavenges for makeup to blot it out. He doesn’t see why it’s such a big deal; maybe her pre-war grooming habits haven’t completely left her.

He knows that her favorite meal is radscorpion steak with InstaMash—weird, not to mention dangerous to get—and that she washes her hair with abraxo—also weird, but less dangerous—and that she only smokes when she’s stressed, but now it only ever happens if Shaun is nowhere around. These are some of the little things he’s picked up about her, things to bide his time while they travel, or if they need to take guard shifts because wherever they’ve settled down isn’t secure.

But Deacon had started travelling with her for more than one reason. To show her the ropes, yes, that was the proposed plan, but keeping an eye on the new girl in the ‘wealth was also very important. He doesn’t just _trust_ people. Trust is something that needs to be earned. And while she’d managed to do just that, he had kept a very careful eye on her. As he told her, actions spoke louder than words.

Fixer gets the job done. She is eager for fights, but she avoids them when she really _knows_ she can, because she’s aware that perpetuating violence never solves a problem entirely. She acts quickly in heated situations, and she’s _smart_ —book smart, street smart, hell, smart in getting herself around the post-apocalyptic ruins of her old city, and he has to applaud her for that. But that’s not what made him cautious around her in the beginning. Anyone can be smart. The Institute and the Brotherhood were both smart. No, Deacon stalked her across the Commonwealth, teamed up with her in the wastes, because he knows she’s _clever_. It’s why he still feels the need to slink around her sometimes.

The Railroad is clever about things thanks to years of his careful guidance. Coursers are clever. Deacon is clever, and he knows that you should never underestimate that trait in a person.

He knows that she lies about herself to nearly everyone. She embellishes her past with tall tales that just sound right so nobody questions her. She skips one of the steps that he likes to take sometimes, where he makes himself look like a bad liar to get away with a good one, and goes straight for the metaphorical jugular, and she does it because she knows she looks genuine. Fixer is petty and holds grudges, occasionally nicks things off people who piss her off, doesn’t try to hurt them so much as cause them minor inconveniences, which he thinks is far worse—a major issue is pretty much expected every day, but a few minor repeated occurrences can throw someone off the deep end. Fixer took on the role of the Minutemen’s General to prove a point to _him_ , and Deacon isn’t sure what that point is yet, but she’s still pushing at it.

So there’s a lot he knows about Fixer.

There is also a lot he doesn’t know.

* * *

They’re both reading by lantern light, her a battered copy of a field medicine training manual and him a book she’d given him a few weeks ago. There was very little time for peace with all the reconnaissance he’d been getting done lately. He kept on the move, had very little time for eating and sleeping, and so most recreational activities had been out of the question. It’s their first job together in a while that doesn’t have him tagging along for her heavy ops so he’s feeling optimistic about what they can get done. The quiet of the little shop they’ve stuffed themselves into for the evening is pleasant—tomorrow they’ll be back out on the field, diffusing a situation in a safehouse a couple of miles out. They would have kept going had they not been so close to the coast; there’s nothing fun about fighting mirelurks at night.

It’s a pretty nice evening by wasteland standards. They haven’t been shot at in about three hours, and they’ve had a full meal. Everything is going well.

He hears the sound of Fixer closing her book, and her feet shuffling. She speaks. “Hey, you got a minute? I wanna get something off my chest.”

Deacon looks up at her, shuts his book, sheds the stupid reading glasses he’s actually been wearing (but only when she’s around, since she complains about it and it’s _annoying_ ) and replaces them with his sunglasses. “Yeah, sure. What’s on your mind, boss?” He’s quick to settle into the easygoing conversational tone they have, but he’s always apprehensive when people start talking like that. Force of habit.

Her eyes are downcast. She’s fiddling with the spine of her manual, and she looks a little upset. This is the second time he’s been on the receiving end of her apprehension, and Deacon is starting to wonder if it’s a practiced move to stall for time. But he’s patient.

Finally, Fixer sighs loudly, chucks the book down next to her and gives him a pointed look. “Listen. I need to say thanks. For helping me get used to how things work out here in the Commonwealth, for keeping me on track all this time. I’ve had a hard time adjusting and I never really want to admit it, but you see through my bullshit like nobody else does.”

For a moment Deacon thinks about this. It’s a nice sentiment coming from her, but she’s always got more to say. Still, he smiles at her, raises an eyebrow that she can’t see. “Hey, no problem. Thick as thieves, remember? I’ve got your back.”

Fixer snorts loudly at that. “Yeah, I mean we are _now_ I guess. But we weren’t always like that, and you didn’t have to watch my back like you have been all this time. And, okay, I get that sometimes it’s not easy to have faith in my decisions all the time, but you let me take point and figure things out, and it’s really helped. Even if you were a bit of a total lying dick in the beginning.”

Ah. He remembers the note he’d given her, his “recall code”, and how she’d promised to guard it with her life. How not even three days later she’d crumpled it up and thrown it at him, clearly pissed off. He laughs at the memory. “I was just imparting some friendly advice on you. Helpful tips to get you on your way. And you learned—you didn’t buy the whole leader of the Railroad spiel I gave you.”

Fixer doesn’t respond for a moment, but her hand twitches. He thinks she’s about to chuck something at him, but instead she says, “That’s literally the only “lie” you have ever told me that’s actually been true, and you’re still sticking with it. I admire your commitment to the shtick.”

“It’s true?” Deacon asks, actually curious about what she’s getting at here. When she’d called him out on it before she’d actually figured out he was testing her again fairly quickly, but now he’s not so sure.

“I don’t know why you sound so surprised.” She’s frowning at him, her arms moving to fold tightly around her middle. “You _taught_ me to never take anything at face value. You _taught_ me to lie to people, to be anyone but myself in certain situations. And yeah, I had a hell of a good head start on that, but everything I am today, it’s all _you_. I don’t know if you know this, Deacon, but your words have some serious sway. You may not be the figurehead, you may not be the leader in the same way as Desdemona, but I’m not stupid. You weren’t lying to me when you said you were in charge of the Railroad. You might as well be, for everything you’ve done.”

That level of thought on the matter gives Deacon pause. She’s _right_. And that’s somewhat concerning— _How long has she been thinking about this? How did she come to these conclusions? Why has she never said anything about it?_

Fixer is _clever_.

Instead of acknowledging what she’s said he grins at her, which only makes her frown more severe, and says, “Is there a point somewhere in all of this, boss?”

She’s clearly trying to keep up her irritation, but somewhere it falters, and she slumps into herself. “Can I… I wanna tell you something personal. You’re the only person I think I can even come close to relating to out here. You’ve seen some shit; considerably more shit than other people, in fact.”

Deacon nods. “Well I _did_ tell you I was a farmer for a while. Brahmin make a mess everywhere they go,” Fixer sighs loudly at his terrible joke, and he almost feels bad for interrupting her. “Kidding. I’m all ears, Fix.”

Fixer lets out a quiet breath, mumbles something to herself and takes off her glasses. She does this when they’re talking seriously, and the meaning of the action is not lost to him—he knows that of all the lies she’s told, he has been on the receiving end of none of them; he’s memorized her tells. Fixer is _clever_ and she knows he doesn’t trust anyone. But she makes the effort to be straight with him. He appreciates it. “Back in the day, things weren’t great with China. You know, what with the war and everything.”

“Kind of hard to miss, yeah.”

She ignores him, keeps speaking, “I’m Asian. Chinese, in particular. I know I don’t exactly look it so much, but that’s the point. I came from a really good family. A really old family. Strong political ties, immigrated very long ago. So I got away from the real hell that other people I knew were facing. I had a paid for education with no road blocks because of my race, I had an important government job and a cushy lifestyle. And yeah, I married a soldier, dyed my hair, settled into relative obscurity. I… I wasn’t always like that.”

Deacon is silent, processing this information. A lot of this is stuff he had already known to some degree—he has eyes, and she does tell him little snippets of her past, harmless things, the actual truths of what she exaggerates to others. And he knows very well about the “communist threat” in pre-war America. Robots and propaganda posters don’t just let you forget things like that, even two hundred years after the fact.

“When I was young, I guess about twenty or so, I ran around with this… club. I was in my rebellious phase.” Fixer smiles at some memory she’s having, laughs to herself. “My mother and father were neck-deep in American politics and just wanted me to go to school, and I was tired of being ignored by them. I attended this peaceful protest for Chinese rights on my college campus, you know, just looking around, trying to see what was going on with it. I’d never faced that sort of discrimination, so I was curious. I started talking to this girl I met there, June Wu, nicest person I ever met. We hit it off immediately, became best friends. And then she told me it was time to get serious.”

He raises an eyebrow, though he’s sure she can’t see it. “I’m guessing she wasn’t asking you out there.”

Fixer laughs, shakes her head. “Man, don’t I wish. Nah, she had a group going on with some of the other people who did the protests. I hadn’t joined them for the longest time, I felt like I had no need to. And my parents, they wouldn’t have been happy to find that out from the dean. We were friends for six months before she even asked me to help out. And because I really cared about her, I went for it.

“It was simple stuff—run fliers we printed out to the guys who would post them around town at night. Leave pamphlets on doorsteps in nearby neighborhoods. Help out the Chinese locals with whatever problems they were facing in running their businesses by showing up and buying things to keep them going. Once we hacked the PA system in the dorms to play traditional Chinese music, and that was pretty cool. All things that I could get away with easily, so that nobody knew I was involved.”

Though he knew of all the previous prejudices the old-war had to offer, Deacon had never wondered too much about what kind of resistances popped up against them. It’s eerily similar to what can be seen in the Commonwealth nowadays, just with ghouls, synths, hell, even super mutants (though he’s never met one other than Virgil who didn’t immediately try to kill him, so that’s something.) It gives him something to think about. “You were fighting for your rights. That’s a damn good thing to do.”

Her face falls, and she snorts. “Yeah, well, _they_ were good. Me? I was never a part of their world. I didn’t know much about that feeling of oppression you get when your country is telling you that you don’t have your basic rights just because of your ethnicity, your culture.” She pauses for a moment, runs a hand through her messy hair and shakes her head. “I got… caught up at June’s house one night, she lived off campus with her parents. She sent me off with a bunch of our anti-propaganda reading material. I just needed to get it back to my room, give it to one of the guys in the hallway the next day. I walked back to campus since it wasn’t too far away and somehow that night was the night I _finally_ got stopped by the cops. It sounds really shitty to say something like this, but they had no idea who I was. To think back then all my problems were so simple to solve by just name dropping my parents.”

Deacon shrugs. “It was a different time.”

“For some, yeah. But what we, no, what _they_ faced back then? You’ve gotta admire how history repeats itself, yeah?” When he doesn’t reply, she continues. “I remember being terrified at the time. I could hear my heart pounding in my ears. And they searched you, you know, if you were Asian and out late. Figured you might be fueling the commies. They found all the flyers, the pamphlets, everything, it was all in my bag. And they took me back to the station for questioning.” Fixer bites her lip, and Deacon thinks for a moment that she might be starting to cry, is about to tell her that she doesn’t have to keep going (it’s half concern, half feeling incredibly uncomfortable with the idea of having to console her outside of what little he does for her nightmares, because what could he even _say_?) but she pulls herself together quickly. She sets her jaw, the same look of soldiering on she’d worn when trying to patch Glory up as she bled out, when blowing up the Prydwen, when pushing that detonator on the top of Mass Fusion.

“They’d send you off to internment camps if they had enough reason to suspect you were doing anything _vaguely_ resembling fighting for your rights. And sure, some of the people there were actually spies they caught, but most of them were good people. A lot more than I bet they were willing to admit. Like history repeating itself then too. As if nobody learned a fucking lesson from the other wars we’ve been in.” Fixer plays with the buttons and knobs on her Pip-Boy idly and Deacon connects the dots without her saying anything.

“You sold them out, huh?” He wonders if he could have phrased that better. Probably, but it wouldn’t be fair to her. She knows what she did. Deacon isn’t in the habit of smoothing over mistakes, and although Fixer is his friend, that doesn’t mean he should ignore when she’s done the wrong thing. The fact that she’s telling him this at all goes to show how much she trusts him—trusts _him_ , and that’s equal parts exciting and worrying after all they’ve been through—to criticize, but not demonize her for what she’s done in the past. She can’t undo her mistakes any more than he can undo his.

Fixer laughs, and it’s mirthless. “I squealed like a fucking pig, Dee. I didn’t even have to. I could have just told them who my parents were and it would have been enough, I would have been out in half an hour, they had _influence_ over some serious shit.  But I didn’t. I lied, said they threatened me into doing it, put on the waterworks and told them I just wanted to not make any enemies in school, that I was terrified. They let me off with a warning, made me name and list everyone in the group. I wasn’t even thinking about them when I left, I was just so _scared_ …”

He’s not sure what he can say to this. Usually he’d just throw a joke out, try to make her feel better, but that’s not his place and it probably won’t help much. “That’s… that’s pretty messed up.”

“I sold out a bunch of innocent kids. And the worst part is that I never saw them again. The next day in school they were all just gone. Vanished. Nobody knew what happened to them, but we all had a pretty good guess. They were peaceful protesters, but they weren’t quiet. They couldn’t afford to be.” Fixer exhales loudly, shakes her head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to go off on a tangent, it just sort of gets me, you know? After all of that I just sort of saw things differently than I did. And I was right to. I spent so much time in a bubble that I ended up lacking my own damn culture. I barely knew anything about it. I got people…” She trails off and looks down at her book, deciding to leave the words unsaid. He couldn’t blame her.

“I understand,” He finally says, shrugging his shoulders. He’s looking at her, but she doesn’t back down from it. He thinks it might have something to do with his sunglasses; she can’t really _tell_ where he’s looking when he wears them.

Fixer huffs. “It really messed me up, but I had to ignore it. You can’t, you know, move on unless you get over things like that. At least on the surface. And I guess I sort of promised myself that I wasn’t going to let anyone get hurt like that again because of me. Because I was being an idiot. But I just… forgot after a while. It just killed me so much to be under that kind of pressure, I had to stop thinking about it entirely. So I reinvented myself, started over. I changed my name after college to fit in a bit more, get around better in social circles; it’s not L-E-E. It’s L-I. There was that, and a number of other things. My hair, my eye color when I was able. I used to speak some Chinese, I learned it from my parents, but I forgot it all.” She gives him a wry smile, like she’s disappointed in herself. “But, uh, don’t tell anyone all of that. I dunno if I’m ready to give up the name yet.”

Deacon returns her smile. “No problem. Don’t feel obligated to tell me your _whole_ life story, I think the whole “Mysterious Vault Dweller from the past” thing you had going on was pretty cool.” He’s not lying to her about that, but he _has_ spent time wondering about this. Either way he’ll damn well keep her secrets, because she’s made good on her promise to keep his, regardless of how much truth there was to them.

She fiddles with her glasses, wipes them on the fabric of her shirt but doesn’t replace them on her nose. “It’s not like I don’t want to tell anyone—I mean, I wouldn’t tell _anyone_ , but… Look, Deacon, we’re good friends. And I trust you, I really do. With my life even. And you know, after you told me about your life before all of... _this_ , the railroad I mean, I sort of got to thinking; the first thing that crossed my mind wasn’t if it was another one of your pranks or not. To be honest, that doesn’t even matter. I was wondering why I’m still so scared of my 200-year-old problems that I can’t just vent about them.”

Deacon laughs at that. “Well if Tinker’s time travel theory pans out you might have cause for concern.” And there it is. She’s smiling at him, rolling her eyes. She looks a lot less serious now. Even when she’s a total mess he’s still got what it takes to get a laugh out of her. It’s a talent he’s finding himself using more and more as time goes on.

“No way. After I let him inject me with whatever that weird shit was, I’ve given up on trusting in his theories. I was nauseous for days after that.”

“Yeah, says the woman who set up a MILA in every conceivable location as quickly as humanly possible,” is his smooth reply. Fixer chucks an empty can at him, hits him in the arm. She’s definitely starting to feel better. Getting all of that off of her chest did seem to do her some good. He knows the feeling.

“Oh, shove it. You’re just being a big baby because you’re scared of heights. It seemed legit. And I’m sure it’ll help us out one day, _somehow_. All of Tinker’s stuff usually pulls through when we least expect it to.” She sobers, shrugging her shoulders. “But really. Thank you. I talk a tough game, but at the end of the day, I’m just one woman. And it’s nice to have someone who has my back through everything. I appreciate it. So there’s my shitty thank you gift—you’re the only person in the world who knows my real name.”

“Hey, I deal in information. Every little bit helps.” He smirks when he sees her riling up, about to say something. “But your secret’s safe with me. Don’t worry about it. Thick as thieves, to the end.”

And it’s silent once more. They go back to their books, the lantern’s dim light flickering over pages at each caught breeze.

He spends a long time sitting around and not reading anything. _Li_ , Deacon thinks, _is a nice name_. It’s _her_ name _._ And now he gets it. He understands why she needs the Railroad so much—it’s her hair shirt, just like it’s his, her way of making up for past mistakes. It’s about 200 years late, but she’s making an effort, and that’s what counts.

It takes him about ten minutes of reading the same three sentences over and over before he speaks. “Dean.” He says simply, and her head turns up sharply, eyes blinking.

“Beg pardon?” She asks, and he’s considering not answering her, but he says it again.

“Dean,” he shrugs his shoulders, looks back down to his book but keeps an eye on her from behind his sunglasses, “it’s my name. If you were curious. I know it’s a hot topic back at HQ. Some of the guys have a betting pool started, so you should cash in on that while it’s still a big mystery. I plan on telling everyone at my retirement party.”

Fixer laughs _hard_ , puts a hand over her mouth to stifle the noise, and he peeks at her from over the dark lenses, smirking. The noise dissolves into giggles, and she finally pulls herself together, shaking her head and fanning herself with her book. “Alright then, _Dean_.”

She doesn’t ask him if he’s being honest or not.

(He’s really happy that she doesn’t.)

* * *

She has nightmares that night and she’s up and reeling, panicked and exhausted and miserable. They sit back to back, just like they usually do, but when one of her hands reaches back to grab at his own he lets her hold it. It’s small, and warm, and her skin is still pre-war soft despite her newly adopted rough and tumble lifestyle.

For the first time it occurs to Deacon that her nightmares might not always be about anything she’s faced since she woke up a year ago. 

* * *

Two weeks later, she doesn’t dye the half inch of black hair that begins to show on her head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I spent a really long time reworking this, but I think it's as good as it's gonna get. So here it is. Basically Lee's (or Li, I should say) reason for signing on with the Railroad. I can imagine there would be a lot of guilt in her situation, and she's spent years of her life hiding from who she is to the point where even in the literal apocalypse she's STILL hiding under all that hair dye and makeup. It took her a long time to sort of come to terms with the fact that it's not RIGHT or HEALTHY of her to do that, but hey, we all make mistakes.


	7. An Ode to Recovery

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear I haven't abandoned this fic, I just had some trouble getting the words down. Sorry!

She’s moving on.

The first sign is that one day, when he strolls into Sanctuary after a particularly boring reconnaissance job—she’s the only person he’s ever felt the need to visit, and he also wants to keep a close eye on the Minutemen, make sure they’re not getting too out of hand, especially after the last incident—he sees her and Shaun heading down the road, Dogmeat at their heels, backpacks full, suitcases packed, and ready for a trip.

“I figured we’d move over to Starlight Drive-In. Sanctuary is nice, but it’s quiet. Starlight has gotten pretty popular and it has a good number of settlers there now. They’re even starting up a school, so I figured we should make the most of it, move in before the good real estate runs out. Then again, I still have my old rooms there, so we might be fine.” She’s all smiles today, and Shaun is too, and he isn’t sure who’s influencing who here.

He offers to take the trip with them, and if he hadn’t seen Fixer rip the eye stalk off a Mr. Gutsy before he would have been appalled that they were going alone in the first place, considering she’s got no backup other than the dog. Apparently she’d sent X6 out two days ago to scout the area and send word back with a provisioner that runs supply lines between the two settlements. Why they wouldn’t all just go together is beyond him, but he assumes that she’s got more of a reason for it that she’s simply not saying.

When they reach the Drive-In a couple of hours later, Deacon notes that there have been some major renovations since he last passed through. There are little homes built all around, the bar has changed locations, there are some communal bunks in a building near the old concession stand. The area in front of the screen has a platform that’s littered with small shops, and almost everyone has something nice to say to Fixer as they pass by it to the back, where the utility rooms sit.

Shaun says he wants the small one just to the side, that he prefers more confined areas. Deacon decides he and the kid can agree on that, though Fixer seems a bit puzzled by it. Still, she lets him have the room that had once been hers and allows him his privacy to get himself set up, holding the door open just enough for Dogmeat to pad in excitedly after the boy. When the door is closed she sighs.

“I would put a doghouse right there,” She points to the corner of the outside wall, “but Shaun likes to sleep with him. It works for me, I guess. I’m only two seconds away but I still worry. I’ll have to see about putting a lock on his door, raising the walls back here a little bit more.”

Deacon offers her a raised eyebrow, and she can see it beyond the sunglasses this time because of how low they’ve slipped on his nose. “As nice as Diamond City can be Fixer I’m not really sure if we need yet _another_ walled fortress keeping people out in the Commonwealth.”

They walk around to the back and examine the larger but cluttered space she wants to make into her room. She sighs, leans on one of the workstations, gives him an irritated look. “I’m aware, Deacon. I don’t want this place to end up like Diamond City, where they can sit around and be afraid of everyone from the outside, even if they’ve done nothing wrong. And I also don’t want it to be Goodneighbor, despite how much I admire Hancock’s business model. I’m not exactly aiming for a den of iniquity and sin here. I need a safe place for my son to live, where the Railroad can maybe set up shop quietly with no arguments, and where my blatantly obvious Courser buddy can work with the security.”

He thinks over her comment on the Railroad taking up in Starlight. She’s helped the Minutemen set up a lot of new settlements as time went on, safe havens for people down on their luck to move to and have a good living, but it’s the first time she’s made any mention of Railroad involvement with one. He shrugs.

“Run it by Dez, but that’s all easier said than done. We haven’t ever had much of a public image to us, you know? At the end of the day, lots of people can be fine with synths in theory, I mean look at how Diamond City is with Valentine. The key is how obvious they are. Put someone like X6 into the mix and people know where they stand. But as soon as someone thinks a synth is “pretending to be human” things start to get a little messy, depending on the crowd.” He admires her positive outlook on things, that she really wants to help the Railroad out, but sometimes Fixer can get unrealistic. She’s got her heart in the right place, but you can’t change someone’s basic nature with a few good words. It’ll happen in time, synths blending in and being able to go about their lives in peace, but for now things need to be handled carefully.

Fixer stares at him consideringly, but she doesn’t respond to what he says, instead pushes herself up to move to the other side of the bench. “Help me get these out of here?”

The second sign she’s moving on is the brief glimpse he catches of her left hand, and he realizes that the wedding ring that was previously glued to her finger is no longer there.

He doesn’t mention it. Instead, he helps her move the two workbenches out of the room, sets them along the outside wall. She goes over to the largest of the bags she’d brought with her, fishes around and pulls out the stacks of books and magazines and comics she’s been collecting through the wastes. She unclips the bedroll from the top of her backpack, sets it out in the corner. “I’ll find the time to get a bed later. MacCready said he’d help me out with it, he’s coming over from the Castle, should be here tomorrow.” She looks up at him, raises a dark eyebrow. “Are you actually staying here or are you just passing through for work?”

Deacon thinks about that, shrugs his shoulders. “I can stick around for a couple of days.”

* * *

 

He sticks around for a couple of days.

He can see this tiny corner of this budding city turning into a home for Fixer and Shaun. MacCready had gifted the kid with a million old posters when he’d gotten back, all torn carefully from the walls of crumbling buildings, and had built Fixer a bed frame, a bookshelf, and hauled in a collection of chests for to store her impossibly large amount of clothing, weapons, and wasteland junk. They'd all worked together to get rid of the old junk in the room, cleaned it up and turned it into a comfortable living space. Fixer had been thrilled.

When Deacon comes to visit her in the morning after she gets a bed—he’d slept in the bunks with MacCready since she looked like she could use some privacy—she answers her door with probably the worst bedhead he’s ever seen and half closed eyes.

“If your bed is that comfortable I might have to ask MacCready to make me one too,” is how he greets her, and Fixer yawns big, stretches her arms and brings one over to scratch the skin around her birthmark.

“I think any bed is amazing if you spend a night sleeping on one of those things.” She jabs a thumb in the direction of her crumpled up bedroll, moving aside to let him in. “And hell, Mac is a crack shot but damn does he know how to build a nice bed frame. Kid’s got a good skillset if he ever wants to change careers.” She steps aside to let him in and shuffles over to the counter they’d dragged in where she’s keeping her food. “Coffee?”

“Sure, boss.”

She gets the water going on a hotplate she's got hooked up to some massive jury-rigged battery, gathers two of the four mugs on the table and her tin of stale instant coffee, the brand she seems to like the most. While it boils she goes about her morning habits; washes her face in the basin in the corner, brushes her teeth, her hair. She’s very lazy with her makeup today, doesn’t even bother with covering up her birthmark. Deacon is well and truly comfortable on her bed, smoking a cigarette and flipping through some old pop culture magazine by the time she finishes and goes to get the water; she wasn’t wrong, this bed is considerably nicer than her old one in Sanctuary. The mattress doesn’t even smell half bad.

Fixer sets a full mug of centuries old coffee on the end table next to him and waves her free hand, the left one, for him to move over. Deacon rolls his eyes behind his sunglasses (he supposes the effect is lost, but it’s the effort that counts) and heaves a dramatic sigh, pulling his legs away to sit cross-legged.

She climbs across to sit perpendicular to him, back to the wall and already starting on her coffee, despite the steam rising from it. He only looks at her for a moment before going back to the magazine, not really reading any one thing in particular. “Got any plans for today?” He asks, and he catches her head bobbing from the corner of his eye.

“Mac is gonna give me a rundown of what’s been going on at the Castle, and I’m spending the day with Shaun.” She’s quiet for a moment, taking a sip of her coffee, and then she asks, “Why?”

Deacon shrugs “No reason. Just wondering when you’re coming back to work.”

Fixer laughs. “Don’t worry. I’ll be back soon enough. X6 should be here soon, I sent him to go check on Warwick for me. I’ll leave tomorrow morning. Do you mind waiting another day for me or is Desdemona gonna chew you out for being late?”

“I’m a spy, not a heavy. I’m rarely doing anything time sensitive. You, on the other hand…”

Fixer rolls her eyes and drags herself over to sit against the headboard with him, careful not to spill her coffee. “Yeah, yeah, I know. Only heavy at HQ. We’ll leave in the morning.”

It’s quiet after that. He’s free to stretch his legs out again and he does so, moving the magazine to rest on his thighs. Fixer watches him flick through pages, occasionally huffing out a laugh at a tabloid for whatever reason. He finishes his cigarette and snubs it out in the ashtray, sets it aside so he can focus on his coffee.

When she finally speaks again they’re looking at a Corvega advertisement. “I had that car.” She says plainly, pointing to some four-door model that costs more money than all the caps he’s ever had in his life.

He smirks. “Well, there’s no accounting for taste, I guess.”

Fixer nudges her shoulder into his, probably deciding at the last second that shoving him while he’s holding coffee is a bad idea. “Hey, ours wasn’t yellow! It was black, with a nice red leather interior. It never really lost that new car smell.” She’s stuck in nostalgia now, he can tell, eyes locked on the ad and fingers tapping her mug.

Sign number three of her moving on is the complete lack of grief on her face as she talks about what her life used to be.

For as long as he’s known her she’s been tight lipped about everything regarding her life before—before the bombs, and Vault-Tec, and the ruined remnants of Massachusetts she now walks through. She’s told stories, yes, but heavily laden with lies that she’s found interesting. And while he knows the truth behind them, every time she speaks to him, to _anyone_ , about her old life, she’s got a look in her eyes like she’d rather be somewhere else. Like she’s hurting something bad, and she wants a way out.

Today, that look isn’t there. Instead she’s all smiles and it shows in her eyes, still a little sleepy but alert enough for him to know that she isn’t simply rambling in exhaustion. She’s talking to him in earnest, and she’s completely fine.

She’s lucky, he thinks. A year is a light sentence for grief.

“How did these things even get around? They’re so… bulky. Except that one, that one’s pretty small.” He points to the tiny Corvega, just barely large enough to fit two people, something like one of the pods in the Memory Den. Aside from the many others he’d come across, he remembers seeing one around the cul-de-sac in Sanctuary way back when. They’d scrapped it for parts.

Fixer actually takes a moment to think about his question before shrugging. “Now that I think about it, I don’t really know. The highways and streets look pretty small in comparison sometimes but cars just sort of… didn’t hit each other. Funny. It’s only been what, a little over a year since I’ve last seen one and I’ve already forgotten,” instead of the usual undertone a comment like that would bring she laughs— _laughs!_ —and shakes her head, “I didn’t do much driving though. I hated it.”

“Oh yeah? Why’s that?” If she’s offering he’ll take the moment to pry. It’s not every day he gets to hear stories like this.

Fixer takes a sip of her coffee, and her free hand is already waving in the air in front of her, gesturing for words she hasn’t said yet. She swallows, rolls her eyes, and says, “It was just a big _mess_ whenever I got behind the wheel. I mean, I learned how to do it and that was fine. But as soon as you actually have to _navigate Boston in a car_ , it sort of loses it’s appeal. It’s cramped, and stressful, and everyone is always so _pissed_.”

Her expression changes at some thought she’s had and she shifts the way she’s sitting to face him fully now. “Oh man, this one time Nate and I were on the highway and there was this insane pile-up. The police were trying to divert traffic, get things moving along, there’s an ambulance and a fire truck sitting nearby trying to diffuse the situation and help people. This one guy, I’m not kidding, this one _asshole_ just got out of his car and started shouting at the cops. Goes off about how his day has been wasted even though he’s right at the end where there’s no more traffic. When the cops asked him to get back in his car he just… whipped it out and pissed in front of them.”

Deacon squints. “There’s no way this actually happened. I’m not buying it, Fix.”

“I shit you not, I was two cars behind him! So the cops arrest him for public indecency and urinating on city owned property, and they had to move his car out of the way so we could all get past. It was a nightmare, especially since I was driving that day—I was taking Nate to get his licence renewed.” She laughs, shakes her head and takes another gulp of coffee.

Fixer doesn’t lie to him, never even really tried to, so he believes her. Still, it’s funny to think that there was a time where taking a leak in a bush in the Commons would have gotten him arrested. More than once, honestly. “You guys had the weirdest problems. But I guess it’s a generational thing. Nowadays we’re focused on things like, you know, surviving the night.”

She rolls her eyes but doesn’t argue with that. Instead she shrugs her shoulders, gives him an amused look. “Yeah. Things were a lot easier back then in some ways. Harder in some too, but… I dunno.”

There’s comfortable silence after that. They finish the magazine, he replaces it with another one, and they just sit like that, ten minutes, twenty minutes, thirty minutes of quiet. It’s nice, Deacon thinks. She’ll have to move soon, get started on her day with Shaun, but she’s not in any rush.

There’s a knock on her door, and Fixer groans, pulls herself away from where she’s made herself comfortable in the corner of her bed to go answer it. It’s X6.

“Ma’am.” Is all he says to her, but Fixer is smiling up at him anyway, just as unbothered by him as ever.

“Hey, don’t ma’am me, X6. How is Warwick doing? Everything okay?” Her arms come up to fold in front of her, and he gets a good view of her ringless hand again, and the bare wrist it's attached to.

And then he notices it, just a short distance away; scraped and dirty metal sitting on top of her bookshelf, screen on the standby clock—10:47 PM—the latch neatly done in the back as if there’s no hurry to get it back on.

He wonders how he’d missed it this whole time.

(Her bed is _very_ comfortable, he reminds himself, to feel just a little better at how unobservant he’d been about this particular detail.)

Fixer doesn’t take her Pip-Boy off often, something he’d noticed as they’d spent more time together. She removes it to sleep, to let other people use it, but it is affixed to her wrist if neither of those conditions are met. They’ve been sitting here for nearly an hour now, and she’s not been wearing it.

She loves that pre-war tech, keeps it close because she finds it useful, and probably because she’s spent nearly every waking hour of her time in the ruins of Massachusetts fearing for her life. The Pip-Boy chimes in when the biometrics scanner tells her she’s hurt herself doing something or the other. The Pip-Boy shines a dull red light on her in the shape of a map, and she follows it faithfully, trusting the topography sensors to take her where she needs to go. The Pip-Boy holds all of her notes, recorded onto blank holotapes, her clumsy to-do list, not in any particular order. It's how she plays Zeta Invaders with no terminal, how she takes joy in trying to beat her old high score. In short, Fixer is dependent on her Pip-Boy, and she’s not wearing it today.

This is sign number four.

He eyes her hair, the dark strands that sit at the top of her head. Maybe, he thinks, that was the _real_ first sign.

X6 says something that makes her laugh, and the Courser seems mildly amused himself. Fixer turns to him, says, “Hey, I’m gonna get ready and go get Shaun. Do you wanna hang with us for the day or do you wanna stay here?”

His friend, his partner, Fixer, _Li_ —she is _changing_.

Deacon looks down at the magazine and closes it, sits up and stretches his back. “I’ll tag along. What’s on the agenda?”

She grins at him and he can’t help but smile back. 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are appreciated if you've noticed any mistakes or just have something to say! Any feedback is appreciated really! If you wanna chat you can find me on tumblr as nucleargoat. Thanks!


End file.
